Adalberto Lafcadio Simeone

Similarity-Based Forecasting with Simultaneous Previews: A River Plot Interface for Time Series Forecasting

Time-series forecasting has a large number of applications. Users with a partial time series for auctions, new stock offerings, or industrial processes desire estimates of the future behavior. We present a data driven forecasting method and interface called similarity-based forecasting (SBF). A pattern matching search in an historical time series dataset produces a subset of curves similar to the partial time series. The forecast is displayed graphically as a river plot showing statistical information about the SBF subset. A forecasting preview interface allows users to interactively explore alternative pattern matching parameters and see multiple forecasts simultaneously. User testing with 8 users demonstrated advantages and led to improvements.

Comparing low cost input devices for interacting with 3D Virtual Environments

Interaction with 3D Virtual Environments has always suffered from a lack of widely available and low cost input devices. Recently, thanks to the diffusion of gaming systems such as the Microsoft XBox 360 or the Nintendo Wii, new input devices are on the market at a relatively cheap price. This paper describes a study whose aim is to compare input devices in order to identify effective alternatives for the mouse and keyboard in such settings where their use is not advisable or feasible, e.g. museums and other public areas. This study has been carried out using a 3D Virtual Environment in which the participants were required to perform three canonical 3D interaction tasks. Two different groups participated to the test: the first group was involved in a pilot study to check the test environment. The second group performed the test.

Combining multimedia resources for an engaging experience of cultural heritage

ICT technologies have a great potential not only for preserving and increasing awareness about cultural heritage, but also for allowing people to better experience this huge legacy. Various application tools have already been developed which provide different types of multimedia resources, such as 3D representations of objects and places, videos, graphics, sounds, in order to augment the physical context by providing virtual, location-specific information, so that people can experience some aspects of ancient life which would otherwise be very difficult to figure out. The effort spent to create multimedia resources is considerable; therefore, it is worth reusing them to produce applications suited to other types of visitors. In this paper, we present our on-going work to provide tailored applications that support different types of visitors. Such applications are developed according to a model that describes how multimedia resources can be combined, also depending on the type of users and devices. Examples of these solutions are briefly illustrated.

Interactive shape specification for pattern search in time series

Time series analysis is a process whose goal is to understand phenomena. The analysis often involves the search for a specific pattern. Finding patterns is one of the fundamental steps for time series observation or forecasting. The way in which users are able to specify a pattern to use for querying the time series database is still a challenge. We hereby propose an enhancement of the SearchBox, a widget used in TimeSearcher, a well known tool developed at the University of Maryland that allows users to find patterns similar to the one of interest.

An Information Visualization Approach to Hospital Shifts Scheduling

Scheduling staff shift work in a hospital ward is a well-known problem in the operation research field but, as such, it is very often studied from the algorithmic point of view and seldom from the human-computer interaction perspective. In most cases, the automatic solutions that operations research may provide do not satisfy the involved people. After discussing the inconveniences of an automatic approach with physicians, we have designed a staff scheduling system that combines an expert system with an information visualization (IV) system; in this way the schedule generated by the expert system is presented through the IV system to the schedule manager, who can modify the results if last minute changes are necessary, by directly manipulating the visualized data and obtaining immediate feedback about the changes made.

An Experience About User Involvement for Successful Design

This paper describes the experience in designing and developing the CET system according to user-centred and participatory approaches. CET is a web-based system used by industries and experts of the regional government that monitor air quality. With CET, industries can officially declare their pollutant emissions in the atmosphere, while air quality experts can easily visualize how the industries are distributed in the regional territory, the type and quantity of emissions coming from their production processes and other important information to support their decision-making process. The experience provides hints about proper user involvement for designing successful systems.

EUD software environments in cultural heritage: a prototype

This paper describes the prototype of a framework for designing interactive applications for cultural heritage sites by following an end-user development approach. The framework is devoted to all design stakeholders, i.e. software engineers, HCI experts, cultural heritage experts and visitors, and provides them with tailored design environments for contributing their expertise to shaping the final applications. The design is guided by application templates, which provide the rules for assembling the basic components, called building blocks, whose result is the final application.

Sharable Multitouch Screens in Cultural Heritage and Tourism Applications

Cultural heritage assets keep alive the history of a territory and of its inhabitants. Several systems have been developed to support people during their visits to historical sites and museums, with the goal of improving the overall user experience. In many cases, people travelling together would appreciate the possibility of collaborating in gathering information and planning a personalized itinerary. Large sharable multitouch screens may offer this possibility. This paper is about ongoing research that is investigating possible applications of large multitouch screens in cultural heritage and tourism. In particular, an application is described, which aims at allowing tourists to get information about a territory and create itineraries for their visits by interacting together on a large screen.

Video abstraction and detection of anomalies by tracking movements

The increasing adoption of video surveillance makes it possible to watch over sensitive areas and identify people responsible for damage, theft and violence. However, when such events are not detected immediately, the subsequent video analysis can be a long and tedious task. The aim of this paper is to present a technique that allows a human investigator to focus only on those parts of a video showing the event as it unfolds, and so helping to save on the time needed to identify and understand how it happened. The presented technique creates a single interactive image of the whole video that shows everything that happened m the scene. The human investigator can then select an area of interest and those parts of the video related to that specific area will start to play.

Evacuation traces mini challenge: User testing to obtain consensus discovering the terrorist

The adoption of visual analytics methodologies in security applications is an approach that could lead to interesting results. Usually, the data that has to be analyzed finds in a graphical representation its preferred nature, such as spatial or temporal relationships. Due to the nature of these applications, it is very important that key-details are made easy to identify. In the context of the VAST 2008 Challenge, we developed a visualization tool that graphically displays the movement of 82 employees of the Miami Department of Health (USA). We also asked 13 users to identify potential suspects and observe what happened during an evacuation of the building caused by an explosion. In this paper we explain the results of the user testing we conducted and how the users interpreted the event taken into account.